Do players thrive after Man Utd or were club right to move them on?

Winner of the Serie A with Napoli, Scott McTominay. Winner of the Conference League with Chelsea, Jadon Sancho. Winner of the FA Cup with Crystal Palace, Dean Henderson.

There was a time when a player’s career started to slow down after leaving Manchester United.

Is that still the case?

Two players signed to United are currently playing in the Conference League final on Wednesday, Sancho who has spent the season on loan at Chelsea and Brazilian winger Antony, who signed for Real Betis on a temporary basis in January.

After Chelsea defeated Chelsea 4-1 in Wroclaw, Poland, Sancho wraps up the season with a European winners’ medal as United’s bosses conduct an inquest into the disastrous 2024-25 campaign.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Matteo Darmian, who both spent time at United in recent years, could also play for Inter Milan when they face Paris St-Germain in the Champions Final on Saturday in Munich.

McTominay was a bit-part player at United’s starting matches when he was on the substitute bench.

The Scotland midfielder requested a change of scenery last summer, and United needed funding to help them adhere to the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR).

The Lancaster-born player made the courageous decision to re-join United in Italy after spending more than 20 years there. He first started playing soccer at the club when he was five.

A fee of £25.7 million appears to be extremely affordable right now.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, his former manager at Old Trafford, recently said to BBC Sport, “How you can sell Scott is beyond me.”

Since joining Napoli from former United team-mate Romelu Lukaku, McTominay’s game stats have improved in almost every way.

In 2024-25, he scored 13 goals and added four assists in 2, 972 minutes of playing time on the pitch, compared to the previous season’s 10 goals and three assists at United.

Paul Lambert, a former Scotland international, claimed that McTominay’s move to Italy was the result of his efforts.

After leaving Manchester United, Lambert, who won the Champions League with Borussia Dortmund in 1997, said that “it’s believed that British football is the end all.”

“It’s not. Players move more quickly when playing European football. You mature more quickly as a result.

According to BBC Sport’s chief football newsman Simon Stone, former United boss Erik ten Hag did not want to agree to a deal with Napoli for McTominay.

You really need to look beyond the deals themselves, comprehend why they happened, and concentrate on the real issues, Stone said.

Scott McTominay is the glaring one. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the former head of Scotland, told me earlier this month in Istanbul that he was unable to understand why the Scotland international had been sold.

The justification was straightforward. It was the only way to raise money through PSR to bring in Manuel Ugarte, even though Erik ten Hag was against doing so with Napoli.

Antony is one more player to enjoy at Old Trafford than Antony.

After moving to Spain to join United for £81.3 million in 2022, the Brazil winger scored five goals in 62 Premier League games before making his first-team debut against Real Betis in January.

Despite having won the Conference League final with a medal, Antony has since managed nine goals, five of them in La Liga and four in Europe. He is now content with life again.

Next season will Antony be back at Old Trafford? Well, he will be a United employee until 2027, but both parties may agree to a permanent move to Betis.

There is not a single United fan who would argue that the Brazilian should have been given more time, according to Stone.

“The ridiculous fee paid for Antony was the issue,” he said.

Henderson, who has been with United since he was 14 years old, has also seen his career grow since joining Palace in a £20m deal in August 2023. He has also been working for United since he was 16 years old.

After saving Omar Marmoush’s penalty in the FA Cup final, he has made his first appearance in England and helped give Palace his first major trophy in the past 12 months.

What about Anthony Elanga, exactly?

Along with Nottingham Forest, who finished seventh overall and secured a spot in the Conference League, he will also play on the continental stage.

Elanga, a Sweden international who joined Forest for just £15 million from United in 2023, contributed 11 Premier League assists and scored six more goals in 2024 and 25.

He had played for United since he was 12 years old and broke into the first team in 2021, making 55 appearances before Ten Hag’s decision to let him join after Elanga decided not to have the necessary calibre to have enough of an impact on his squad.

There have, of course, been numerous recent instances of players’ careers deteriorating since leaving United.

Paul Pogba’s signing from Juventus was a record-breaking £89 million in 2016.

After receiving a four-year ban for a doping offence in February 2024, he left in 2022, and the World Cup winner with France in 2018 is currently without a club. However, that was cut to 18 months in October.

Jesse Lingard has signed for FC Seoul in South Korea while Anthony Martial, who left in 2024, is currently playing for AEK Athens in Greece.

As Ruben Amorim attempts to stamp his name on the squad and secure his own signings since taking over the club in November, a number of players are expected to leave United this summer.

Marcus Rashford, who has been on loan at Aston Villa and has agreed to leave while Amorim is in charge, is one of the likely departures.

Additionally, the United boss has informed winger Alejandro Garnacho that he will be allowed to sign for a new club this summer.

Will Rashford, a two-time FA Cup champion and champion of the Europa League, and Garnacho and Rashford prosper elsewhere?

Garnacho, who is still only 20, is often believed by those who follow United that the pressure placed on him by his lack of experience has not helped him.

Will he start at Chelsea next season or make a United debut?

Sancho has had a good season at Chelsea, according to Stone.

The Blues would not even have considered sending him back to United if he had been that good.